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Proposed Internet Security Law Raises Concernshttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/07/proposed-internet-security-law-raises-concerns/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/07/proposed-internet-security-law-raises-concerns/#commentsThu, 09 Jul 2015 03:22:18 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=184694As part of a wave of legislation aimed at further regulating civil society, speech, and assembly, the Chinese government has issued a draft law on Internet security, which is open for public review until August. Like the draft Foreign NGO Management Law and the recently passed National Security Law, this proposal has been criticized for being excessively vague and for its potential to impose harsh restrictions on Internet expression. Didi Tang at AP reports:

The National People’s Congress, the country’s highest legislative body, released the text of the proposed law on Wednesday. It said a legislative panel gave the proposal its first reading in June and that it is seeking public comment until Aug. 5.

China’s government considers cybersecurity to be crucial to national security, and espouses the concept of Internet sovereignty, treating its portion of cyberspace as its territory.

The proposed law says Internet operators must take necessary steps to close security loopholes to prevent possible cyberattacks. It also criminalizes any hacking activity. [Source]

* Government will establish national security standards for technical systems and networks.
* Real name registration to be enforced more strictly, especially with messaging apps where enforcement has been lax.
* Internet operators must provide “support and assistance” to the government for dealing with criminal investigations and national security. […]
* “Timely warning and notification” system for cybersecurity incidents. [Source]

The document, dated Monday but picked up by state media on Wednesday, strengthens user privacy protection from hackers and data resellers but elevates the government’s powers obtain records on and block dissemination of private information deemed illegal under Chinese law.

Citing the need “to safeguard national cyberspace sovereignty, security and development,” the proposed legislation will allow China to bolster its networks against threats to stability and better regulate the flow of information.

[…] Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said the business lobby was still reviewing the draft law but that it was “worried”.

“The chief concern is that, as with many Chinese laws, the language is vague enough to make it unclear how the law will be enforced,” Wuttke said. [Source]

One item in the law that has raised hackles among human rights and free speech advocates is Article 50, which would allow local governments to shut down Internet access in case of emergency. China Daily explains:

In a move to ensure State security and public order, governments in the country’s provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities could take measures to restrict Internet use with State Council permission in the event of a serious security breach in their area.

[…] The draft, covering seven security sections and 68 items, also stipulates that network operators and Internet authorities are obliged to stop the spread of posts that break laws. They also must record such breaches and report them to appropriate bodies.

Li Yuxiao, a professor of Internet governance at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said the draft’s disclosure is crucial for today’s China, since online threats and security problems pose great risks. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/07/proposed-internet-security-law-raises-concerns/feed/0How China Stopped Its Bloggershttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/07/how-china-stopped-its-bloggers/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/07/how-china-stopped-its-bloggers/#commentsTue, 07 Jul 2015 03:16:13 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=184641For the Australian Financial Review, Angus Grigg examines the two-year campaign against social media and online expression launched by Xi Jinping soon after he became president. Grigg looks at the impetus for the crackdown and its success in silencing some of China’s most outspoken online writers and commentators, including Han Han, Charles Xue, and other lesser-known writers. He also looks at the impact the campaign has had on the decline of Weibo. Zhan Jiang, a professor of media studies at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, attributes the crackdown to factional infighting within the Party, and calls the current climate, “the worst time for media and internet freedom since the start of the new century.” From Griggs’ report:

It might not have been China’s Arab Spring or a colour revolution, but the rise of internet activism was seen as a significant enough threat to the party for it to take swift and decisive action beginning in September 2013.

“There has been an aggressive and concerted campaign to take back the internet,” says Jeremy Goldkorn, a director of Danwei, a firm which researches markets and media in China. Nearly two years on, the word netizen (wangmin) has all but disappeared from the Chinese lexicon and Weibo, which is less than six years old, has become road kill on the information superhighway.

“Weibo has lost its position as the primary social force in China,” Goldkorn says. “During its peak [in 2012], it was like Facebook and CNN combined.”

With the decline of Weibo, China’s public intellectuals, loudmouths and general troublemakers have also lost their voice. There is no room for them in President Xi’s new China. This suggests the party has won again.

One of the world’s most enduring totalitarian regimes, which Rupert Murdoch predicted would fall with the introduction of satellite television, didn’t just outlive this threat but has also tamed the internet in the age of social media. It has done this mostly through fear. [Source]

Several of those “public intellectuals, loudmouths and general troublemakers” have been detained and sentenced over the past two years in an attempt to silence their activism and transmit a warning to other like-minded Internet users. For the South China Morning Post,Verna Yu provides an update on the case of Wu Gan, a blogger and activist who was critical of alleged wrongdoing by local officials:

Observers said the government wanted to incriminate Wu Gan, 43, an influential online campaigner famed for his loud and colourful protests, to warn other activists not to target and embarrass even low-level officials.

Yan Xin, Wu’s lawyer, said prosecution authorities in Xiamen told him on Friday that they had granted police permission to arrest his client on two criminal charges – “inciting the subversion of state power” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.

The authorities had dropped a charge of defamation, which police had earlier wanted Wu to face, Yan said.

A Xiamen City People’s Procuratorate employee, who answered the phone yesterday, said he was unable to answer press inquiries. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/07/how-china-stopped-its-bloggers/feed/0China Hails “Tremendous” Human Rights Progresshttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/china-trumpets-tremendous-human-rights-progress/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/china-trumpets-tremendous-human-rights-progress/#commentsTue, 09 Jun 2015 03:19:51 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=184109The State Council Information Office today released a white paper titled “Progress in China’s Human Rights in 2014,” the twelfth such report since its 45,000 word tome in 1991. The paper’s introduction hails “tremendous achievements” made under the guidance of the CCP last year, demonstrating the country’s progress on the “correct path of human rights development that suits its national conditions.” The following nine chapters each cover a different realm of human rights, illustrated with a dizzying selection of government statistics.

China has also made notable progress in improving the right to development, which is a fundamental human right for people of the world’s largest developing country.

According to the report, the country’s annual per capita disposable income reached 20,167 yuan (3,290 U.S. dollars) in 2014, up 8 percent over the previous year and faster than the economic growth rate last year.

Substantial efforts were made to alleviate poverty, including more government funds for infrastructure in the least-developed rural areas and relocation of people in uninhabitable regions.

[…] Unfortunately, some countries have always turned a blind eye to Chinese progress in human rights or even slung mud over its record in this regard.

The concept of human rights varies in different countries and will be updated according to the changing reality. The rest of the world should respect China’s unique conditions and traditions. [Source]

In the report’s first section, titled “Right to Development,” this year’s white paper backed up Beijing’s claim to have better protected the Chinese people’s cultural rights by pointing to, among other things, China’s burgeoning television, cartoon and film production.

In 2014, the paper noted, China produced 429 TV series, accounting for 15,983 episodes, and cartoon programs amounting to 138,496 minutes. The report also flagged growth on the silver screen, saying the country produced a total of 618 feature films — 36 of which earned more than 100 million yuan each — and racked up total box office revenues of 26.9 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) last year.

The latter figure represented a 36% increase over 2013, the white paper said. It wasn’t clear from the report how that growth related to human rights. The State Council Information Office, which produced the report, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[…] The report said that 90% of the economic and social development goals set out in the country’s most recent five-year plan had either been exceeded, nearly fulfilled or made smooth progress. It also said China had achieved most of the targets set out in a four-year national human rights action plan set to end this year. It did not identify in either case which targets had been missed. [Source]

“The human rights record last year was particularly appalling, even compared to China’s poor human rights records in previous years,” said Maya Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“In 2014 the government detained a large number of activists, tightened or passed new regulations to restrict freedom of the press and freedom of speech on the internet and in universities, and made significant moves to push people to adhere strictly to Party ideology, as exemplified by Document No. 9,” Wang told dpa. [For further context on Document No. 9, or the related 2014 detention and recent sentencing of journalist Gao Yu, see prior coverage via CDT.]

[…] Monday’s white paper also said China’s legal reforms gained momentum last year, citing the October adoption by the leadership of a blueprint to promote the rule of law.

[…] However, Chinese lawyers say not much has changed, while working conditions for some have worsened.

“Authorities have done a lot of work on paper, but at this point, very little has changed in actual practice,” human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told dpa. […] [Source]

The report, released without warning by the State Council today, is also an illustration of the disconnect between China’s definition of human rights and that of its critics. Specifically, China equates economic development with human rights—as opposed to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights which includes statements such as “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” and “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”

[…] A recent Human Rights Watch Report criticizes China’s penal system for torturing arrested suspects by beating them, shackling them to chairs, or hanging them by their hand cuffs. Other groups have criticized the increase in arrests of moderate activists, human rights lawyers, and regular citizens.

Chinese officials, in contrast, view arrests as a sign of better policing. The white paper says that over the past year it has prosecuted 712 people for crimes of terrorism and “inciting separatism,” a charge often given to activists in Tibet or Xinjiang. The report also says that 168,900 people were arrested last year for drug-related crimes. [Source]

The freedom of speech is being better protected in China, as the country is working to promote citizens’ democratic rights, a white paper on China’s human rights said Monday.

[…] The public can air opinions, and raise criticisms and suggestions freely through the news media, and discuss problems of this country and society, it said.

The government encourages enterprises to provide various Internet services to the public in accordance with the law so as to create a good environment for the public to acquire and exchange information, the white paper said, adding that a cleaner cyber space is becoming an ever important place for the public to get information and make their voices heard. [Source]

On the same day as the release of the white paper, British activist group Free Tibet released a statement saying that ongoing construction efforts put forth by Beijing have polluted the only water source in the Tibetan village of Shadrang. The report says that various infrastructure and mining projects have disrupted the natural habitat and have had a profound effect on resources for local residents.

“Infrastructure projects in Tibet are motivated by China’s focus on resource exploitation, not the interests of Tibetans,” Alistair Currie, campaigns and media manager for Free Tibet, said in a statement. “Roads and highways facilitate the movement of equipment and workers in, and extricated resources out. Pollution, destruction of the environment and land-grabbing are part and parcel of the economic exploitation of Tibet, and of little concern to China’s government. This is a deep source of grievance to Tibetans and increasingly a flashpoint for protest.” [Source]

Taking Tibet as an example, currently there are 1,787 venues for various religious worship activities there, with 46,000 resident monks and nuns, said the white paper released by the Information Office of the State Council.

Living Buddha reincarnation, a special succession system of Tibetan Buddhism, is respected by the state, it said, adding that there are 358 living Buddhas in Tibet.

[…] The Chinese Islamic Association has compiled and published Islamic scriptures in Arabic. The Association has also set up a website in the Uygur language, providing introduction of religious knowledge and online explanation of the scriptures.

In 2014, a total of 14,466 Chinese Muslims made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Relevant government departments have sent accompanying medical staff to guarantee the pilgrims’ health and safety, the paper said. [Source]

But Wang’s decision to remain in Japan has led to another set of challenges. The cartoonist, who had hundreds of thousands of followers on social media before his accounts were deleted on sites including Sina Weibo and Tencent, is now struggling to make a living. Last year, Taobao, an online shopping portal owned by Alibaba–China’s biggest e-commerce company–closed Rebel Pepper’s Little Shop through which the cartoonist supported himself, reports said. Alibaba has not publicly commented on why the online store was closed.

Selling the occasional cartoon to Japanese publications and his position as a visiting scholar at a Japanese university, which offers no stipend, are not enough to keep him afloat, he told the Christian Science Monitor this week. Wang added that so far, he and his wife have not been able to apply for political asylum in Japan. The pair have “cultural exchange” visas that are set to expire at the year’s end, the report said. [Source]

He said in his public appeal that he was “so ashamed” to ask his supporters for money, but that “there are really no better solutions.”

At the moment, Wang says, he “cannot see the future.” But he has started drawing a narrative comic strip about China’s recent history, starting with the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. “If the government says I am an enemy of the state I will say whatever I want to say,” he declares. “I have nothing to lose any more.” [Source]

Though his name has now been virtually wiped off the face of China-controlled Internet sites and Twitter, he’s not holding back on his opinions, thanks to his satirical cartoon wit. And because his works are no longer influential within China, concern for his family’s safety is no longer a large issue.

“I had no intention of becoming an enemy of the state. I started out drawing cartoons for my own interest without realizing they would influence so many people,” he says. “But the Chinese communist party has no sense of humor. They pretend they’re gods and can do no wrong. They’re like extremist Muslims who try to present a noble image.”

Wang says the conditions of freedom of speech in China have worsened since he left. “The arrests are different from before,” he says. “Before, they would first send people a letter of warning. Now there are no letters. People just disappear.”

[..] When complimented for his bravery, however, Wang is self-effacing. “If I were really brave I’d go back to China. I’d continue to fight and willingly suffer the consequences,” he says. He cites the bravery of his friend, activist artist Ai Weiwei, who remains under house arrest in Beijing with police surveillance cameras mounted around his home and studio. “Actually, I was very frightened,” he admits. “I often had nightmares after uploading my political cartoons. I was always afraid of being arrested or attacked.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/rebel-pepper-struggles-to-survive-in-japan/feed/0Artist Detained After Posting Photo of Xi Jinping [Update]http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/artist-detained-after-posting-humorous-photo-of-xi-jinping/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/artist-detained-after-posting-humorous-photo-of-xi-jinping/#commentsFri, 29 May 2015 00:58:02 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=183864Dai Jianyong, a photographer who frequently posts images of people with contorted faces—known to his social media followers as “chrysanthemum faces”, referring to a Chinese slang word for “anus”—has reportedly been detained in Shanghai for posting a similarly doctored photo of Xi Jinping. AP reports:

Authorities have detained an obscure Chinese artist after he posted online a humorous portrait of President Xi Jinping, his wife said Thursday.

[…] Chinese artists have long walked a fine line between what they can express without getting into trouble with authorities. Posting politically sensitive work online has become one clear red line, especially under Xi’s more hard-line rule.

[… His wife Judy] Zhu said Dai previously created collages of former Chinese President Hu Jintao covered with the heads of random people, but had not received warning that anyone in government was paying attention. She said about a dozen police were waiting for the couple when they returned home Tuesday.

“It was just a playful thing he did,” she said. “I don’t think there was that much political intent behind it.” [Source]

Sensitive Words highlights keywords that are blocked from Sina Weibo search results. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. Use the form at the bottom of this post to help us crowd source sensitive words. You can also browse our archive of sensitive words.

Following Dai’s detention, several related keywords have become blocked from Weibo search results. The artist’s name, Dai Jianyong (戴建勇) is not searchable, nor is coca, the letters that follow his name in his Weibo handle (his account, @戴建勇coca, however, is still online at Weibo). Paralyzed brother (麻痹哥), a nickname for the artist derived from his the atrophied facial expression characteristic in his photos, is also unsearchable. Diao+tele (刁＋特勒), a play on the previously (and continually) blocked Xi+tele (习＋特勒), which sounds like the Chinese word for “Hitler” (Xītèlè 希特勒), is also blocked. Netizens had commented that the offending mustachioed picture of Xi made him vaguely resemble the Nazi dictator.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information.

Gao Yu, 71, has denied leaking state secrets abroad, and her lawyer said that she would appeal against her seven-year sentence. He said the prosecution lacked evidence and had based its case on her confession, which she said was made under pressure because her son was also in custody at the time.

[… Lawyer Shang Baojun] said the court excluded testimony from the founder of the Mirror Media Group – which first published the text, known as Document No 9 – denying that Gao sent it to him.

“We think there isn’t enough evidence to prove that Gao has leaked the document. There isn’t physical evidence and there is no witness. Ho Pin, who the prosecutor alleged to have received the document from Gao, has given written testimony that Gao didn’t send him the document.”

The Mirror Media Group has reiterated publicly that Gao did not leak the text to it. Gao’s statement of “deep remorse”, which she said she agreed to because she feared retaliations against her son, was broadcast on television without her knowledge. [Source]

Explaining the News: The crime she has been accused of is “illegally providing state secrets beyond [China’s] borders,” but can you really regard the Chinese Communist Party’s internal documents concerning ideology as “state secrets”?

Shang Baojun: This is something we’ve debated before. Investigative organs determined through the Beijing Municipal Office for the Protection of State Secrets (北京市保密局) that the document in question was a state document of a confidential nature (机密级). Of course, we don’t agree with this conclusion. And we’ve appealed for a new determination higher up from the PRC’s National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets, including on the question of whether [the document] can be construed as a “state secret” — and then further what, if any, level of “state secret.” China has three levels of secrecy: top secret (绝密级), confidential (机密级) and secret (秘密级). If any of these are leaked, there are subject to different sentences.

Regardless of what the determination is, we do not believe that a document from the Chinese Communist Party providing guidance on propaganda and ideology, or direction on the main theme (主旋律) can be construed as a “state secret.” [Source]

In yesterday’s update from CDT, former high-level aide Bao Tong agreed that Gao would have had the right and even duty to reveal the document, while Amnesty International’s Nicholas Bequelin explained the “over-broad and open ended” definition of state secrets which makes them “the weapon of choice to silence critics, dissenters, journalists and party foe.”

While the punishment is not as harsh as it might have been—leaking state secrets overseas can carry anything up to a life sentence—it is heavier in light of Gao’s age. From Josh Chin at The Wall Street Journal:

The sentencing of the journalist comes amid a sustained crackdown on criticism and independent political activity in which dozens of activists, lawyers, scholars and others have been detained or jailed, in some cases for unusually long periods. Besides Ms. Gao, authorities have prosecuted two other elderly dissidents: 74-year-old Yiu Man-tin, a publisher of political books who was sentenced to 10 years for smuggling, and 81-year-old Huang Zerong, a writer better known as Tie Liu who was fined and given a suspended 2½-year sentence for illegal business dealings.

[…] In the past, it was rare for Chinese authorities to detain or jail elderly critics, who were traditionally given quiet warnings when they crossed political red lines.

[…] “Seven years is a long time for someone who’s 71 years old,” said Maya Wang, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, adding that dissidents have been hit with a progression of lengthier sentences in the past two years. “This basically surpasses any kind of crackdown we’ve seen since the early 1990s,” she said. [Source]

Gao Yu was right, I was wrong. Gao, who was handed a seven-year prison sentence in a Beijing court on Friday, and I met at a conference organized by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers in Paris in April 2008, a few months before the Beijing Olympic Games were to get underway. CPJ had worked hard to publicize the mistake made by the International Olympics Committee in awarding China the Games in the first place.

[…] But in private conversations I would admit to some degree of hope that China would loosen up after the Games ended and the visiting journalists had gone home. Though the government did follow through on some of its promises about Internet access and freedom for visiting journalists to report more freely, those permissions eventually melted away.

As happens at conferences like that, I met Gao in the restaurant of the hotel where we were all staying. I mentioned my feelings that China would benefit from hosting the Games, at least in terms of loosening some of the restrictions on media. She was quite frank when she told me I was deluding myself. China’s media policies were not going to change, and I was naïve to think that they would, or even that they could as long as the Communist Party was adamant about maintaining sole control of state power. [Source]

[Peter] Limbourg announced that, in reaction to the harsh sentencing of Gao Yu, DW will suspend its negotiations with the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on proposed technical cooperation in the area of art and culture.

Limbourg said, however, that he is convinced that dialogue with China is the only viable way to communicate ones own position and convictions and to bring about change through engagement.

“We do not want to close all channels of communication. However, a necessary prerequisite for future co-productions will be a demonstrable improvement in the attitude of the Chinese government towards critical journalists, bloggers and people with different views,” said Limbourg. He emphasized that DW will, “continue not only to closely track the fate of Gao Yu. It will also continue to closely monitor others in China who, due to similar allegations, are being persecuted or imprisoned.” [Source]

For months Beijing repeatedly cracked down on critics. A recent example being the arrest of five feminists who had wanted to protest against sexual harassment on public transport. The protesters were released on bail, but their legal cases are still pending. That case seemed particularly absurd because the Communist Party likes to portray itself as a champion of women’s rights. Obviously only one thing counts for the Chinese government: Stifling any form of dissent.

[…] The verdict against Gao Yu fits into this pattern. The Chinese government clearly wants to quickly suppress everything that could be a challenge to President Xi Jinpin’s “Chinese Dream.” The ice in China has become very thin for those who have a critical point of view. [Source]

On this week’s Out Loud, Hessler and Osnos join Amelia Lester and discuss the decision about whether to comply with censorship in China. Hessler points out that the Western press’s coverage of the issue often overlooks a key question: “Do these books provide any value to people there, does it make a difference to them?” [Listen here]

In his comments on Uighurs and Tibetans, Pu tries to appreciate how ethnic minorities see things—not ideologically but as practical matters of daily life. He hears about a new regulation ordering that Buddhist temples in Tibet hang portraits of the top Chinese leaders—all Han—and that the stated reason for the move is “to dissipate religious consciousness.” He posts: “Are Han heads insane? Or only the head Hans?” When militant Uighurs massacre people at the Kunming railway station, Pu denounces the violence but then posts, “This is a result, not just a cause.”

The posts that the regime seems to be counting as “picking fights and causing trouble” usually show disrespect for the Communist Party’s fakery. They are sometimes blunt (“This Party, top to bottom, could not survive without lies”) and sometimes wickedly witty. On Shen Jilan, a representative of record-setting longevity in the People’s Political Conference, who boasted of casting not one single “nay” vote in sixty years, Pu wonders: “Good at feigning stupidity? Or is this authentic stupidity?”

It may seem odd to detain someone first and then go look for the reasons for the detention, but in fact this is a well-established pattern. In the trial of the Maoist “Gang of Four” after Mao Zedong died, in Deng Xiaoping’s charges against the dissident astrophysicist Fang Lizhi in 1989, in the prosecution of Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo in 2009, and in many other cases, the questions “What law was broken?” and “What facts show that it was broken?” have both been researched after detentions are ordered. And in Pu’s case, by going after Internet speech, however harmless or trivial it may be, the authorities may be staking out a further area in which the regime of Xi Jinping hopes to tighten its control. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/02/inventing-crime-case-pu-zhiqiang/feed/0Rights Groups Detail China’s Deepening Repressionhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/human-rights-watch-freedom-house-reports-detail-deepening-repression-china/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/human-rights-watch-freedom-house-reports-detail-deepening-repression-china/#commentsFri, 30 Jan 2015 00:56:38 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=180932Human Rights Watch released its 2015 World Report on Thursday, covering more than 90 countries in 644 pages. The organization sharply criticized China for eroding rights on several fronts, but also faulted the international community for failing to confront it.

Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government and Communist Party have unleashed the harshest campaign of politically motivated investigations, detentions, and sentencing in the past decade, marking a sharp turn toward intolerance of criticism, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2015.

“Under President Xi, China is rapidly retreating from rights reforms and the Party’s promise to ‘govern the country according to law,’” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Repression of critics is the worst in a decade, and there appears to be no end in sight.”

[…] This year’s World Report also flagged weakening international concern about human rights abuses in China. Some, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, instead praised the government for “its contributions to the promotion of … human rights.” China continues to refuse meaningful engagement with UN human rights mechanisms and voted down resolutions spotlighting abuses in Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Ukraine. China repeated its calls for “political solutions” in Syria, Sudan, and South Sudan in 2014, but took steps that prolonged human rights crises in all three.

“China under Xi Jinping is escalating hostility to human rights and democratic pressures, at home and abroad, yet the international community remains largely silent,” Richardson said. “Abetting the systematic suppression of basic freedoms is a short-sighted and dangerous policy, one that only encourages Beijing’s growing intransigence.” [Source]

The Chinese government’s approach to Xinjiang, the northwestern province that is home to the Muslim Uighur minority, is to respond to complaints about human rights abuses with more human rights abuses and restrictions. Beijing claims that its crackdown is necessary to fight separatism and terrorism, but its tactic is to impose some of the most draconian and discriminatory policies against Uighurs, including prohibitions on wearing beards and veils, restrictions on fasting, and overt discrimination with respect to religious education.

The escalating deadly attacks against civilians and security forces in Xinjiang are a grave concern for the government. But the haste with which the government attributes violence to “Uighur terrorists”—while rarely producing evidence and routinely denying suspects the right to a fair trial—creates a vicious cycle in which already-repressed Uighurs feel under constant siege from the state. From the little information made publicly available, it is impossible to assess with any confidence whether those convicted and often sentenced to death are responsible for violence and whether the government’s severe counterterrorism measures are aimed at the right people.

As illustrated by the extraordinarily harsh life sentence handed down in September to Ilham Tohti, a moderate Uighur economist, the state remains unwilling to distinguish between peaceful criticism and those who engage in violence. [The looming prosecution of rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang on charges including inciting ethnic hatred and separatism offers another example.] Viciously prosecuting peaceful criticism, leaving virtually no room for religious or cultural freedom, and expanding an economic strategy in which Uighurs cannot compete equally with Han Chinese migrants is a recipe for increased violence.

[…] In all of these cases, policymakers inevitably can cite seemingly good reasons for downplaying human rights. Human rights require restraint that can feel antithetical to a “do what it takes” attitude that often prevails in the face of serious security challenges. But the last year shows how short-sighted that reflex can be. Violations of human rights often sparked these security challenges, and their continued violation frequently aggravates them. [Source]

An aggressive anticorruption campaign reached the highest echelons of the party during the year, and party and government bodies pushed forward incremental reforms of the petitioning system, household registration (hukou) rules, and laws on domestic violence. In October, the CCP Central Committee convened for its fourth plenum, focusing on improvements to the legal system.

However, such initiatives were accompanied by hard-line policies on political freedoms and civil liberties and a rejection of judicial oversight of party actions. Harassment of previously tolerated civil society organizations, labor leaders, academics, and state-sanctioned churches intensified. Internet controls continued to tighten, and several activists who had been detained in 2013 were sentenced to prison on politically motivated charges. Crackdowns related to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the prodemocracy Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong, and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Beijing resulted in hundreds of new detentions.

Harsh state repression of the Uighur population’s ethnic and religious identity, combined with long-standing socioeconomic grievances, have apparently fueled an escalating cycle of radicalization, with several deadly attacks attributed to Uighur extremists during 2014. The government responded with heavy-handed collective punishment and more intrusive restrictions on religious identity. Meanwhile, Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life in prison in September for supposedly inciting separatism, signaling the authorities’ intolerance of even peaceful advocates of Uighur rights and interethnic dialogue. [Source]

China’s growing political influence over Hong Kong encountered dramatic public resistance in 2014. In August, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) issued a decision that would allow a popular vote for chief executive in the territory for the first time in 2017, but would empower an effectively pro-Beijing committee to control nominations for the contest. Prodemocracy groups criticized the decision, arguing that it violated promises of eventual universal suffrage that China had made under Hong Kong’s Basic Law and in a corresponding 2007 NPC Standing Committee decision.

Long-standing disagreements between the authorities and a large section of the population over the degree of free choice in future elections came to a head in response to the ruling. Large student-led protests broke out in September, with demonstrators establishing encampments and barricades at several points in the city center. The occupations continued for more than two months, though the police periodically attempted to clear them, at times using tear gas and batons. The police were also accused of enabling violence by counterprotesters with alleged links to organized crime groups. The last encampments were removed by mid-December.

Meanwhile, the territory’s press freedom suffered a sharp decline. The number of physical attacks on journalists increased during the year, major businesses withdrew advertising from critical media outlets, and reporters acknowledged the growing practice of self-censorship. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/human-rights-watch-freedom-house-reports-detail-deepening-repression-china/feed/0Covering China from Cyberspace in 2014: Excerptshttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/covering-china-cyberspace-2014-excerpts/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/covering-china-cyberspace-2014-excerpts/#commentsFri, 23 Jan 2015 18:26:06 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=180761Two publications have published excerpts from the new CDT eBook, “Covering China from Cyberspace in 2014,” a yearbook of major events as seen through the eyes of Chinese censors and the netizens who are brave enough to defy them. The book looks at a number of news events and trends in China in 2014 and compiles online reactions, from both Internet users and government propaganda authorities.

While suppressing speech, the government also took advantage of Chinese Internet users’ affinity for social media to polish Xi Jinping’s image and post photos of him interacting with common citizens in everyday situations. But Xi’s foray into social media soon became the subject of netizen scorn when he publicly praised a nationalistic and factually-challenged blogger. A post linking the blogger, Zhou Xiaoping, to Xi’s image-crafting campaign, and mocking them both, was one of the most popular posts on CDT Chinese in 2014, showing the tenacity of online public opinion even in a censored environment.

[…] Some stories elicit a significant amount of insightful commentary; for others, propaganda officials issue directives and lists of sensitive keywords to filter before public opinion has a chance to jell online. The stark contrast between these two dominant voices on the Chinese Internet was felt especially acutely this past year in the midst of Xi’s ongoing crackdown on speech. [Source]

The Beijing government worked very hard to control the narrative of the protests for mainland viewers and to censor media coverage through a series of directives. As the protests surged in response to police brutality, propaganda officials instructed:

All websites must immediately clear away information about Hong Kong students violently assaulting the government and about “Occupy Central.” Promptly report any issues. Strictly manage interactive channels, and resolutely delete harmful information. This [directive] must be followed precisely. (September 28, 2014)

[…] For many mainland Chinese, the censorship efforts worked. In media interviews, mainlanders acknowledged knowing little or only having a negative opinion of the Hong Kong protests. Yet others found ways to express solidarity online. When a letter from a Shenzhen high school student urging his peers to abandon the protests was published in the Global Times, netizens quickly jumped on factual inconsistencies in the letter and quoted Chilean artist and free spirit Alejandro Jodorowsky: “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.” The quotation quickly became a meme…

“We stood up for this because different voices — even if they’re sometimes offensive — can make the world a better and more interesting place,” he wrote. “[W]e never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world. …This is what we all need to reject — a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world. I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.”

Zuckerberg’s brief post has been liked by more than 435,000 people and shared by more than 45,000. The applause is loud and clear.

But did Zuckerberg forget something? About two weeks ago, Facebook censored a video I posted about a self-immolating Tibetan in China, and around the same time the Facebook account of exiled Chinese writer Liao Yiwu was suspended for posting photos of a Chinese artist streaking in Stockholm to protest China’s imprisonment of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Thanks to media reports of these two incidents of Facebook censorship, Zuckerberg can’t really paint himself as a hero who would die to defend freedom of expression. [Source]

“Freedom of expression includes criticism, disagreement or even rejection of faiths or ideology … but should not and must not allow ‘insult’,” Abbasi had written. “Would it be ‘freedom of expression’ if I brand black people as niggers or if I say Hitler was a messiah? Would I not be branded a racist or anti-semitic?”

[…] Zuckerberg’s strong response to the Hebdo attack has thrown Facebook’s attitude to free speech into the public eye again. The social network is among the least permissive online, and is famous for removing content, including pictures of breastfeeding mothers, that it decides is in violation of its community standards.

[… Pando Daily’s Nathaniel Mott commented] “It would be one thing for Zuckerberg to express support for those most affected by the Charlie Hebdo killings. No one should be killed for their beliefs. But it’s another thing entirely to use this tragedy to white-wash Facebook’s murky relationship with numerous governments and pretend it’s not the least free social service available.” [Source]

When a state – say, Russia — asks Facebook to block the Internet, the company faces a “tricky calculus,” he said. What’s the benefit of denying a censorship request? Zuckerberg said he “can’t think of any examples” where a company like Facebook has taken a stand on free speech and gotten a country to change its laws as a result.

Getting blocked would only take Facebook away for everybody else. What good would that do? “Our responsibility” is to keep Facebook operational at all costs, he said.

Zuckerberg said Facebook doesn’t do this for business reasons. “If we got blocked in a few more countries, that probably wouldn’t affect our business a lot,” he said. “This is really about our mission and our philosophy.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/facebook-founder-not-exactly-honest-free-speech/feed/0Charlie Hebdo, China, Press Freedom, and Solidarityhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-china-press-freedom-solidarity/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-china-press-freedom-solidarity/#commentsFri, 16 Jan 2015 21:26:35 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=180528The January 7th attack on the Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo inspired an international wave of support for freedom of speech and of the press. Over the past week, however, China’s state media have repeatedly used the killings to call for limits on it. The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Chin highlighted a commentary by Xinhua’s Paris bureau chief Ying Qiang, for example:

“Charlie Hebdo had on multiple occasions been the target of protests and even revenge attacks on account of its controversial cartoons,” the Xinhua news agency commentary said, adding that the magazine had been criticized in the past for being “both crude and heartless” in its attacks on religion.

“Many religions and ethnic groups in this world have their own totems and spiritual taboos. Mutual respect is crucial for peaceful coexistence,” the commentary said. “Unfettered and unprincipled satire, humiliation and free speech are not acceptable.”

The Chinese news agency isn’t alone in raising questions about the tenor of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons about Islam. Xinhua took note of this, quoting editorials in Western newspapers criticizing the French magazine’s approach and advocating greater respect for others’ religions and faiths. Still, none of the Western editorials it cited expressly advocated limiting freedom of speech. [Source]

Any killings or violence related to terrorism should be condemned and the perpetrators be brought to justice. However, it is high time for the Western world to review the root causes of terrorism, as well as the limitation of press freedom, to avoid more violence in the future.

[…] The attacks against Charlie Hebdo should not be simplified as attacks on press freedom, for even the freedom itself has its limits, which does not include insulting, sneering or taunting other people’s religions or beliefs.

The world is diversified and every religion and culture has its own core values.

It is important to show respect for the differences of other peoples’ religious beliefs and cultures for the sake of peaceful coexistence in the world, rather than exercising unlimited, unprincipled satire, insult and press freedom without considering other peoples’ feelings. [Source]

“Westerners believe that when a small minority of Western media satirize the Islamic prophet, that this is ‘freedom of the press,’” [Global Times] said in an editorial on Friday.

“Some people even see the protection of this freedom a Western value.”

[T]he Global Times said many Muslims living in the West “feel that they are neither trusted nor respected.”

It said Western politicians were unwilling to “curb” media outlets because of their need to win votes. “Sometimes they even support the media,” the paper said.

While the official Xinhua news agency echoed the Chinese government’s condemnation of the attacks, it said they had highlighted “issues with France’s anti-terrorism and immigration policies in recent years.”

French involvement in strikes on Libya and the Islamic State had turned the country into a target for terrorists, while religious extremism has been allowed to flourish under the country’s liberal religious freedom policies, it said. [Source]

(State media articles advocating press restrictions missed the opportunity to argue that information controls might have dampened a wave of attacks on 26 French mosques with firebombs, guns, grenades, and pig heads.)

[…] Let’s start at the beginning. What is the society we’re offering you today?

It’s based on money, profit, segregation and racism. In some suburbs, unemployment for people under 25 is 50%. You are marginalised because of your colour or your first name. You’re questioned 10 times a day, you’re crowded into apartment blocks and no one represents you. Who could live and thrive under such conditions? [Source]

China is urbanising at a rapid pace. In 2000 nearly two-thirds of its residents lived in the countryside. Today fewer than half do. But two ethnic groups, whose members often chafe at Chinese rule, are bucking this trend. Uighurs and Tibetans are staying on the farm, often because discrimination against them makes it difficult to find work in cities. As ethnic discontent grows, so too does the discrimination, creating a vicious circle.

[…] Reza Hasmath of Oxford University found that minority candidates in Beijing, for example, were better educated on average than their Han counterparts, but got worse-paying jobs. A separate study found that CVs of Uighurs and Tibetans, whose ethnicities are clearly identifiable from their names (most Uighurs also look physically very different from Han Chinese), generated far fewer calls for interviews. [Source]

[…] The French government famously restricts when and where French women can wear headscarves, a regulation that critics claim robs the country’s minority population of their identity. Likewise, the Chinese government has imposed similar restrictions on Islamic dress among its Uighur population, most recently by banning full-length burqas in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital city. The ban followed a similar restriction imposed in Karamay, a smaller Xinjiang city, that forbids religious wear on public transportation.

But China’s repression of its Uighur population goes well beyond similar French measures. Officials in Xinjiang have placed the Chinese flag inside mosques throughout the region, and have restricted many faithful (including children under the age of 18) from entering mosques at all. The Chinese government has also clamped down on bilingual education in the region, placing Uighur people—for whom Mandarin is not a first language—at a competitive disadvantage. “A lot of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, as in Tibet, feel that the Chinese government is practicing a form of cultural genocide,” said Julia Famularo, an expert in the region at Project 2049, a think tank in Washington, D.C. [Source]

Let’s leave aside the fact that China — despite its strict censorship policies — has faced violent attacks from separatists in the predominantly Muslim western province of Xinjiang. The most cynical claim here is that free speech is a “Western” value, when many Chinese people are obviously clamoring for it.

And cartoonists have often led the charge. Consider Kuang Biao, whose account on Weibo — the popular Chinese micro-blogging network — was abruptly shut down by state authorities two years ago. One of Biao’s now-censored cartoons indicted censorship itself: Under the caption “Mainstream media,” he drew a caged bird with a pen in its beak.

[…] Even as China joins the global chorus against “terrorism,” its restrictions on freedom actually echo the terrorists who struck in Paris last week. Both of them insist that speech must be squelched in deference to a larger power. But whereas the terrorists invoke religion, threatening anyone who “blasphemes” it, the Chinese demand fealty to the state.

Charlie Hebdo didn’t just mock the fanaticism of the faithful, whatever their religion. It mocked the pretensions of the powerful, wherever they ruled. Too bad so many of them — in China, and around the world — can’t take the joke. [Source]

In Charlie Hebdo’s case, the joke has occasionally been aimed directly at Beijing. After the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake, which killed between 240,000 and 650,000 people, its cover proclaimed “it can’t be worse than Communism!”

The magazine did not leave depictions of racially stereotypical traits such as buck teeth behind in the 70s, as Abe Sauer pointed out on Twitter:

People who defend Charlie Hebdo as not at all racist have prob never seen some of mag's China coverage. Sample: pic.twitter.com/d1JHdElLTM

While calls for press restrictions irked some, another controversial aspect of state media coverage was CCTV’s alleged misrepresentation of Wang Fanghui, a Chinese resident of Paris who had encountered the killers shortly before the attack. The state broadcaster claimed to have coaxed a cowardly Wang into giving his first interview, although he had already spoken publicly to French media. Wang appealed to his former classmate, Caixin’s Zhang Jin, for an explanation:

I’m not a hero and it was mere coincidence that I faced a killer’s gun barrel. I stood out and talked to the media after a narrow escape from death just so I could begin with my healing process psychologically.

But the reporter’s upside-down remark has left my attempt in ruins and hurt my reputation. To say the least, it was a stab to an open wound.

I simply don’t understand why a journalist would have called white black when faced with the facts. Besides, the sentences she added were trivial and had nothing to do with the point of the news.

Zhang Jin, buddy, you are also a media worker. Why did she make up the words she said? Do you have any idea? [Source]

[…] “In the Kunming knife attack, 29 people died,” one Weibo user wrote in a popular Jan. 12 comment in response to the Paris march, “but many Western countries didn’t acknowledge this as a terror attack. The Western double standard in defining terrorism is revolting.” Another user complained, “After Kunming, the West was unified in criticizing China’s human rights, not criticizing terrorism.” Another user wrote, “The West always thinks that it is infallible to use its own values to judge the entire world. Although I oppose violent terrorism, I am similarly irritated by Western hypocrisy.” One Weibo user invoked the French president’s Jan. 11 declaration. “After the Kunming attack, did Western media say, ‘Today, Kunming is the capital of the world’?”

[…] There was no great show of unity on Chinese streets after Kunming, perhaps because authorities would have been unlikely to approve mass gatherings that touch on the sensitive issue of domestic terrorism. Citizens in China may wish they had been entitled to such a moment of catharsis. “I don’t understand the comparisons with Kunming,” one Weibo user wrote. After that attack, “Tell me, did similarly large crowds stand up? If everyone remains silent, how are other people going to pay attention to us?” [Source]

There are possible explanations for Western responses aside from anti-Chinese feeling. Regarding the initial reluctance to label the Kunming attack as terrorism, The New York Times’ Edward Wong commented:

[… T]he sleepy village of Luokan is about as remote and unlikely a place for terrorism as can be found. Yet when police fatally shot a man recently in the middle of a busy market here, they declared him a terrorist as well and abruptly closed the case.

“But everyone knows this is a lie,” said one villager in a hushed midnight interview inside his home.

“There are no terrorists here,” said another beside him. “The only ones we’re afraid of are the police.” [Source]

A similar contrast to that between Paris and Kunming emerged as coverage of the Charlie Hebdo incident eclipsed news of a series of Boko Haram attacks in north-eastern Nigeria. As many as 2,000 people have been killed in the town of Baga this month, while last Saturday a 10-year-old girl was used to carry a bomb into a crowded market. While expressing disappointment with the lack of international attention to these events, bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah suggested that the lack of visible demonstrations by Nigerians had been a factor. “Whatever the world does should be an amplification of what we ourselves are doing for our country,” he said according to The Financial Times. “You can’t cry more than the bereaved.” The originator of last year’s #BringBackOurGirls campaign Hadiza Bala-Usman similarly noted that “what is happening in France is so symbolic for us in terms of what we have not been able to do to come together in this region.”

The fact that #BringBackOurGirls did succeed in drawing Western attention to the region, together with the role of the #jesuischarlie hashtag as a beacon for solidarity with France, highlights another issue. Because Twitter is an international platform, both movements were able to hop borders and gain global momentum with relative ease. Beijing, though, has deliberately cultivated its own separate archipelago of homegrown social media platforms, penning in any hypothetical #woshiKunming (#IamKunming).

[…] Meaningfulness: The central metaphor of Galtung and Ruge’s paper is a shortwave radio – of all the signals we tune into on the radio dial, we are most likely to tune into those that have meaning for us, say a human voice speaking in a language we understand. Meaningfulness includes cultural proximity: we are more likely to pay attention to events that affect people who live lives similar to our own. […]

Consonance: While news is usually a surprise – a natural disaster, an unanticipated death – Galtung and Ruge argue that we like our surprises to be consonant with narratives we already know and understand. […]

Unambiguity: We like stories that are easy to understand and interpret – nuanced and complex events are harder to cover than unambiguous ones. […]

Stories about people: Stories need heroes and villains. Coverage of the Paris attacks has focused on Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier and his willingness to “die standing than live on my knees”, and the long histories of the radicalization of Cherif and Said Kouachi. […] [For those unwilling to embrace the cartoonists as heroes, Ahmed Merabet and Lassana Bathily provide alternatives.]

If Galtung and Ruge’s principles hold, we shouldn’t expect attention to the Baga massacre to increase in the next few days. It’s too distant, physically and culturally, too complex and devoid of the personal narratives journalists use to draw audiences to complex stories. But it’s critically important that we understand what happened in Baga, not just to understand the challenges Nigeria faces from Boko Haram, but to understand who religious extremism affects. [Source]

The political furor of the day in the US was the Obama administration’s decision not to send anyone more visible than the American ambassador to last weekend’s dramatic march in Paris, where numerous world leaders joined millions in solidarity with the terrorist attacks there. [See Politico for background.]

But nobody’s asking the same question of the supremo in the other global super-power, Chinese president Xi Jinping, which has had faced its own terror problems recently. Chinese leaders aren’t expected to pay attention to anything but their own interests; indeed, their official news agency’s response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks was to make the case for more press limits.

If the measure of a country’s soft power is what people expect of their leaders, even in truancy Obama is demonstrating the advantage US leaders have over their undemocratic rivals [….] [Source]

The secret to LinkedIn’s seeming success? Aside from its willingness to play by Chinese rules on expression, the company has relinquished 7 percent of its local operation to two well-connected Chinese venture capital firms. Having such a relationship with homegrown firms is crucial for foreign web companies seeking to operate in China, experts say.

“The government needs to know who they can call, and as a foreign company you need to know before your site gets shut down so you have a chance to do something about it,” said Duncan Clark, founder of BDA China, a consulting firm that advises foreign companies on China’s tech sector. “That’s worth a lot, to have that channel.”

[…] Although LinkedIn’s strategy has given it access to Chinese speakers, analysts say it poses risks for the company’s reputation and growth strategy.

Like many American tech companies, LinkedIn, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., has promoted itself as dedicated to free-market principles. Too much censorship could cause users to flee.

What’s more, if LinkedIn’s business grows larger in China, that could give the government more leverage to make demands about what type of content is permissible globally. […] [Source]

The report, the result of a survey among the organization’s 243 members, paints a portrait of mounting pressure on foreign journalists as the ruling Communist Party seeks to aggressively limit negative coverage abroad and to punish news organizations and reporters who defy warnings to steer clear from so-called sensitive topics, such as the wealth accumulated by relatives of China’s top leaders.

[…] The report details increasing harassment of foreign journalists by public security personnel, with two-thirds of respondents reporting interference or physical violence in the field. […]

[…] In some instances, the police have sought to intimidate reporters by visiting their homes and bureaus. In the weeks before the 25th anniversary of the June 4 military crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square, several reporters were summoned to the offices of the Beijing Public Security Bureau and warned against covering the occasion.

[…] A number of other American news organizations have been thwarted in their effort to establish bureaus here. According to the report, PBS NewsHour, Huffington Post and the online news organization GlobalPost have been denied licenses to set up offices in China. A reporter for Huffington Post living in Beijing has been granted a six-month temporary journalist’s visa rather than a longer-term journalist’s residency visa.

Large portions of the country remain off-limits to foreign correspondents. In addition to the restricted access to Tibet, the government has made it increasingly difficult for reporters to conduct interviews in the far western region of Xinjiang, home to China’s Uighur minority, as well as to heavily Tibetan areas of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai Provinces. The report described such restrictions as “widespread, arbitrary and unexplained” by the authorities. […] [Source]

[…F]or decades, Hong Kong has been an oasis of free speech and a robust media—both among local media and journalists from around the world who have been based there. This status is now at risk.

Recent alarming events in Hong Kong demand urgent focus. In 1984, China signed an international treaty, the Joint Declaration, expressly guaranteeing press freedom in Hong Kong and the continued application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This treaty is registered at the United Nations.

The escalation of violent attacks on journalists and demands from China’s Central Liaison Office for censorship and to cease advertising in independent media are causes for great concern. If Hong Kong loses its free flow of information, the territory will quickly lose its status as a global financial center.

Press freedom is most likely to advance over time in China if it is preserved today in Hong Kong. [Source]